Site navigation

Browse Fellows

Biographical entry Griffiths, Donald Barry (1921 - 2004)

MRCS 1943; FRCS 1952; MB BS London 1943; MS 1959; LRCP 1943.

Born

12 March 1921Colwyn Bay, UK

Died

12 April 2004

Occupation

General surgeon

Details

Donald Griffiths was a consultant general surgeon in Aberystwyth. He was born in Colwyn Bay on 12 March 1921, the son of Thomas Owen Griffiths, a science master, and Alice Adelaide, the daughter of a tailor. He was educated at Penmaenrhoe Council School and Colwyn Bay County School, and was Denbighshire county scholar. He studied medicine at University College Hospital, with a physiology scholarship, qualifying in 1943. He held house appointments at New End Hospital and at Queen Mary's, Carshalton, and was a registrar at Bethnal Green Hospital and Epsom District Hospital. During the war he served with the RAMC in West Africa and Greece. After the war, he returned to the professorial surgical unit at UCH, where he held the John Marshall fellowship.

He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon at Aberystwyth in 1960 and later at the newly built Bronglais Hospital. He was President of the Aberystwyth division of the BMA in 1972 and was awarded the BMA certificate of commendation in 1994. A member of the Welsh Surgical Society, he travelled widely to their meetings. Late in his career he developed a severe illness of the hands, caused by surgical gloves, but recovered and resumed his duties.

A delightful, gregarious person, he knew everyone in the little village of Llanon in Cardiganshire where he retired. A keen football supporter, he was a former chairman of Aberystwyth Town Football Club. Recovering for surgery for aortic stenosis, he remained active until shortly before his death from heart failure on 12 April 2004. He leaves a widow, Mary, and five children.

Sources used to compile this entry: [BMJ 2004 329 115, with portrait.].